WHILE HE'S HERE, LET'S ARREST PUTIN - 8.11.25

let's arrest Vladimir Putin. The one and twenty five member states of the International Criminal Court have been looking to put Putin away, most recently for kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children and forcing them to speak Russian and pretending they are without homes or they've been abandoned or their refugees literally the sick joke about killing the parents and then

claiming what's left over is orphans. The one hundred and twenty five member states that have a series of arrest warrants for Russia's monsters for all kinds of war crimes in Ukraine include the rest of our continent, Canada, and Mexico. I mean, it's not gonna happen, but it sure would be nice to see the Canadian military move across its border into Alaska and take Putin. Who knows, maybe Vladimir would hide behind Trump is a human shield. You have

to admit Trump would make a giant double XL human shield. Finally, something useful. Of course, Trump is already a giant double excel human shield for Putin. Figuratively, you will recall it was Trump who did nothing as Putin and Russia became ensconced in Crimea and the don Bas. During Trump's first junta. You will recall Trump's asinine campaign promise to settle Russia's

invasion of Ukraine in one day. I believe we're at two hundred and four different one days since since seizing power again, Trump has given Putin two weeks to observe a ceasefire. When Putin ignored that, Trump gave him another two weeks. Then he said he was disappointed in Putin. Then he gave him fifty more days. Then he said he wondered if Putin was lying to him or what had happened to Putin. Then he gave him ten days. Then when those ten days ran out, he offered to

meet with Putin. Not Putin, and Zelenski just Putin, and when the small problem of where to meet came up, Putin would be arrested in nearly all of those one hundred and twenty five ICC member nations. Trump volunteered our house, Alaska. This asshole lies to Trump about Ukraine five times that we know of, and Trump responds by inviting this butcher. This would be Stalin into our country unless you brought him here to drop twenty tons of shit on his head.

Fu Trump. Also, Trump's special envoy dealing with Russia is either a moron or deliberately stalling for Putin, or both. This is that clown Witkof, not that clown Lutnik or that clown Huckabee or that clown Kellogg or that clown Vance. The German news outlet Build reports that Witkof is such a nitwit that, when he met with Putin, demanded as a starting point for any ceasefire negotiations the starting point that Ukrainian forces be withdrawn from those parts of Ukraine

Putin falsely claims are his. Witkoff promptly decided that what Putin had said was he was offering to withdraw Russian forces from those parts of Ukraine. Honest to God life in prison. I thought you said life out of prison. The Wall Street Journal has since confirmed this German report.

In fact, Whitkof has now told at least three different versions of the phony Ukraine peace deal from Russia, one or two or all three of which are the nonsensical basis for inviting this scumbag Putin here to our country without a plan to detain him. Here's what Murdoch's paper wrote, quote. The European counterproposal concludes a week of frantic diplomacy triggered by Putin's overture to Whitkof. After the two men met at the Kremlin, Trump summoned a call with select European

leaders and Zelensky to brief them on the proposal. On the call, Trump suggested that Russia would be ready to withdraw from the southern region of Zapparizia and Kherson in exchange for full control of Dunnetsk. That's the first version. However, here comes the second version. Witkoff walked back that claim the next day in a call with the chief aids of European leaders, suggesting that Russia would both withdraw and freeze the front line. It's two different things. The third one.

On Friday, European officials demanded a third call with WITCOF to clarify the growing confusion about what Putin actually proposed. In that call, WITCOF clearly stated that the only offer on the table was for Ukraine to withdraw unilaterally from Donetsk in exchange for a ceasefire. Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg attended some of the calls, which is of course the same thing as Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg not attending any of the calls. There are a lot of stupid people

working with Donald Trump. He surrounds himself with the best of the stupid people. In fact, he looks for people who are stupider than he is. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, if you want to look smart, surround yourself with a bunch of wit Coffs, Vance's, Rubios and Kellogg's. But whit Cooff may be the stupidest outstanding work. Trump a moron actually found to negotiate for him, to negotiate for us,

theoretically to negotiate for Ukraine an even bigger moron. And based on this guy's moronity, we are admitting Putin to this country. Hey call that hitler guy see if he wants to come to By the way, Putin actually did offer a concession in these negotiations, not to Ukraine, not to achieve peace, but he offered a concession to Trump. And what is that concession to meet him in Alaska? To go to Alaska? Going to Alaska? Is the concession Alaska?

Or is the Russians call it Russian America. That's the win he's giving to Trump to condescend to come to our country and not get arrested, because he knows Trump desperately needs something he can pretend is a win, a triumph, a deal statesmanship, something other than Epstein. So when this meeting happens and Putin pitches something like who knows Ukraine is just erase from all maps tomorrow? And Trump endorses it.

Because Trump so desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, or, as Caroline Levitt calls it, the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump will endorse anything that might get a Nobel Peace Prize for him. When Trump endorses it and Zelenski rejects it, Trump will start hating Zelensky again and blaming him, because this is about Trump getting a prize he hosted Azerbaijan and Armenia last week because he wants a prize. He didn't know what an Azerbaijan is. He just wants a prize,

a major prize, a major prize. Like the father in the movie A Christmas Story wanted a major prize. He just wants a major prize, a nice glowing mesh stocking leg lamp to put in his window, A noble leg prize. I take back what I said about arresting Putin while he's here. Arrest Putin and Trump and this buffoon witcoff own Caroline Levitt to the idiot. So the Vice president is covering up a secret conspiracy meeting that was held to cover up the secret conspiracy Trump cover up of

Trump Stein got it? You will recall that somebody leaked that Advance was supposed to host Vance evidently taking a day off from his exhausting schedule of back to back to back vacations. Vance was supposed to host for dinner

at the Vice President's residence last Wednesday. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Blondie FBI director Keep Your Eye on the Ball Patel, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche visibly to discuss the ongoing Trump Epstein crisis, specifically what to do with the tape and the transcript of Trump's first deal with Glaine Maxwell, where he flew Todd Blanche to her prison cell and Blanche gave her immunity for two days and then Presto chaninjo she wound

up being moved from that prison cell to a club fed jail camp in Texas. Release the tape, burn the tape, claim the tape is missing a minute, do something about whatever crisis it presented, depending on whatever it was that Maxwell revealed about Trump or threatened with or whatever during that meeting. Vance and the others immediately denied there was such a meeting. It was fake news. It was they lied. It now turns out that to make it technically not a lie, they had the dinner all right with all

those people and talked about Epstein. They just did not have it at the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory. They moved it to the White House. That way. When they said they sure as hell were not meeting about Epstein Advance's residents, they weren't lying. They were meeting about

Epstein at Trump's residence. We still don't know what happened, except for the fact that the lead has been buried by those who broke that story, and then those who broke that story that the venue was changed, and by those few news organizations that have brought it up since the lead is why we're vance Wiles, Bondi, Patel, and Blanche meeting about Epstein, about Gallaine Maxwell without Trump being there? Where was Trump? Why would they meet about Epstein and

not have Trump there? Because whether there's a picture of Trump on every page if the Epstein files, or there's literally sworn testimony in them from every victim saying Trump was not involved, the Trump conspiratorial mob's interest in the Epstein case is Trump period. So it wasn't like he wasn't there because he was golfing at Sunset. We are

all left speculating. Seems to me pretty clear they needed to figure out what to do about Trump whenever whatever was in the files or whatever was in Maxwell's conversations with Blanche got out, or how to keep it from getting out, or how to keep Trump from finding out, or who to get in as the new president of what was in there about Trump was really really bad. I mean it's a cover up. It's obviously a cover up. That's not a conclusion. Trump keeps saying it's a cover up.

He keeps saying he has to protect people who would be hurt by the truth. He meanders around that basic line. But that's what he's saying, again and again. We can't release it because innocent people may be hurt. Innocent meaning him and his relatives. That is the definition of a cover up. We have the information, we're not going to tell you. Cover up. Let's talk cover up. Make sure Trump is not there? Why not? Well, the cover up

is about him. Happily, just as those of us still paying attention to Trump's steen were worrying that it might be losing steam as a news story, here comes JV. Vance, not on vacation for the second time in a week. What is there an asteroid about to hit the earth? JV. Vance goes on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Fox Show. And by the way, he's wearing more makeup and eyeliner than she is,

and she wears a lot. And how in the hell has he gotten away with this for a year as the number two person in the Let's kill all the drag Queens party. I mean, I'm opposed to this. I have nothing against drag queens, but at some point are any of these cultists going to come down from whatever drug they are all high on. We hate drag queens.

What's that on Vance's face? Anyway? JV goes on with Bartiromo and says, quote, we know that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of connections with left wing politicians and left wing billionaires. Democrat billionaires and Democrat political leaders went to Epstein Island all the time. Who knows what they did, which raises two points JV. One, if that's how you

read it, boy, why haven't you released the files? If this is a treasure trove of details about Democrat billionaires and left wing billionaires and Democrat political leaders and left wing politicians going to Epstein Island and who knows what they did? Isn't this the kind of stuff you MAGA scum make sure goes public even when it doesn't really exist.

Why are you suddenly covering up for them? The second point, of course, is that throughout the Epstein era, one of those left wing politician, left wing billionaire Democratic billionaire Democratic political leaders registered Democrats was Donald Trump. Oh, I get it. That second point I just made there that explains my first point. That's yeah, what we are seeing is clearly the outcome of dinner with JV and Susie Wiles. When

Trump does something new, suddenly, irrationally. That's my next item about this nutso demand that the homeless move out of DC. Thank you for your attention to this matter, because all homeless people have the truth social app When he does something out of the blue, there's always something in the background that has actually just thrown him, something so big that it got through that haze of mirrors that he holds around his own face, so you can always see

how handsome and beautiful he is. Now, this could be a Yugov poll for The Economist, showing that his approval among conservatives, while still wildly above water, is not as wildly above water as it was just a month ago. He was a net plus eighty among conservatives in July,

and he's a net plus sixty five in August. Reading conservative poll numbers is always a risky business, but a lot of pole analysts look at the interior numbers in this Yugo of Economist poll and they see most of his slippage coming over the brutality of ice and much more significantly about how they're handling Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Who mister katur, mister Katur, I know who net plus sixty

five is net plus sixty five. But he loses that much support among conservatives every month, an admittedly crazy idea by itself, But if he loses fifteen points a month, by January, he would be underwater among conservatives at minus five. So dropping fifteen points in a month is not a big one, but it's an iceberg. That's what Susie and JV were meeting about, because if he drops five points among conservatives every month, by next November, he'll be at

minus ten among conservatives. And guess what next November is now it rhymes with schmid schmerms. Trump is obviously in the Epstein files the way Gatsby is in The Great Gatsby. So you release none of it, but you keep saying maybe you will, and when you do, it'll implicate Nick Carraway and especially that meer wolfsheime guy. Trump tried to spend his weekend teasing a big press conference for today about seizing control of the district of Columbia. But of

course he couldn't shut up. As I hinted earlier, that's his big surprise, to try to break your attention from Epstein and the disaster that is his mishandling of Ukraine. But by yesterday we knew it was going to be an attempt to sweep up the homeless and any suspected criminals, like the trash left over from the birthday parade Trump threw for himself in Washington. Speaking of which, you want to sweep up criminals in d C. Don hope you

start with the Trump cabinet and your family. The first slime who should be rounded up is Howard Lutnik, the impossibly skilled Trump ass kisser. Howard used to be a sympathetic figure. Catter Fitzgerald was his firm. He was chairman. Six hundred and fifty eight of his employees died on nine to eleven and thereafter, including two of my college classmates. He helped organize fundraising recovery care for the families, treatment

for the nine to eleven cancer victims. Now now what they're rite on his tombstone was he kissed the ass of a dictator who just cut sixty four million dollars in federal funding for terrorism prevention funding in New York City. Howard, you've apparently forgotten this now that you found a new life lying on television in service of the devil. But New York City is where Canter Fitzgerald and the World

Trade Center was. I do have a practical suggestion about Trump's planned treatment of the homeless in DC, which may turn out to rival Putin's treatment of the stray dogs in Sochi during the twenty fourteen Winter Olympics. This monstrous ninety thousand square foot pile of shit Trump plants to put next to the White House, then spray it with

gold plate and call it a ballroom. Move all homeless in there, although I can understand if they are reluctant to go in because of the rustolium seven seven one zero eight three zero. But Trump is now sprayed on everything in the area, including Milania. Just because one is homeless does not mean one ceases to have taste and standards,

which would invariably be better than Donald Trump's. And then there's the most underrated story and most underrated villain of twenty twenty five Columbia University and my former friend and colleague gets co chair and Acting President Claire Neville chamberlainshipman her cowardice. Her university's cowardice has inspired cowardice copycats everywhere in academia. Everything you ever thought bad about a teacher or a professor turns out they went into the management

of our major universities. Trump is now trying to find a way to invalidate patents held by Harvard because because this is a dictatorship, and he wants a billion dollars from UCLA, or he will cut off research grants to UCLA because this is a dictatorship. And he has now gotten pen to cancel its equal opportunity scholarships because this is a dictatorship. On the other hand, as usual, it is the students at these places showing most of the guts.

The newspaper, The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration. Stanford is not suing the newspaper run by the students. The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration over its use of immigration laws to target and deport pro Palestinian activists because international students on the staff of The Stanford Daily are turning down news assignments related to the War on Gaza or quote seeking removal of their previous articles about it. The lawyers for the student papers say the

government is actively and retroactively violating the First Amendment. Unlike the people they pay their money to and are supposed to learn from, they are doing something. I'll say it again. You know what would have stopped this, this particular thing about academia if when Trump first aimed symbolic rocket launchers at Columbia and at his own alma mater, Penn, if Penn had said, you go girl, and then announced it was withdrawing Trump's degree from the Wharton School at the

University of Pennsylvania. Or if Penn had merely announced that Trump's degree was now under review, a review that will take several years because of irregularities discovered in the admissions office records of the time, which they had just found while looking for DEI stuff at Penn. And you know what else, If Penn did that now we're reviewing Trump's degree, it will take till the year twenty thirty six. If Penn did that now, it would completely push Trump and

his multiple assholes back on their heels today. Ultimately, of course, we're still going to have to defund the federal government. That might wait till after the midterms, but at minimum going to have to do it no later than January twenty one, twenty twenty six. We have to starve Trump out. We have to demand he pays a billion dollars or any of you guys know how to turn off all the electricity to the White House in mary Lago. Worst

person's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown thirty seven years ago. Right now they were getting a press conference ready. They were putting it together for that night, the biggest one in the history of hockey in California, one of the five biggest press conferences in the history of sports in Los Angeles, and as a vice president of the Los Angeles King's hockey team said to me, it's all

your fault, you bastard. He was smiling at me though when he said that. I think it was a smile. The story of the greatest story I ever broke, and how I did almost nothing to break it. I didn't even phone it in. The sources phoned it into me next in things I promised not to tell. It's Kretzky Day first. Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about, the roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other

worst persons in the world, the Brons worse. Why it's Secretary Christy Nome, Christie Garden, Gnome CHRISTI murder your daughter's dog, Gnome, Christy, I'm keeping an entire industry alive, Gnome, reacting to her portrayal on South Park. And I'd like to point out that the ball all the guardrails that have failed us, the one last remaining guardrail, the last line of defense surrounding democracy, maybe South Park, Parker and Stone, and that's it.

Washington Post out the window, the Courts, out the e fing window, CBS News out the window, NBC, ABC, out the window. Appeasement after appeasement by the university system. The university's out the window. Everybody in it for themselves, Like this is France in February of nineteen thirty freaking nine,

not South Park. She's not happy with the portrayal, in which I believe they kind of represented her as Michael Palin's movie or Terry Gilliams movie Brazil portrayed one of the characters who's facial work melted one day and they were having problems with facial work and the faces just melted or turned into goo. And they did that with the Secretary Nome, who among our Western monuments, the only faces that have had more work than Christy Nomes are

the ones on Mount Rushmore. Anyway, she's complaining and thou anything constantly main fine of women for how they look. She said to Glenn Beck that's right, Glenn Beck. I didn't know either. Yeah, so she managed to make her lips move long enough to be able to say in thou lay John constantly make fun of women for how they look. Well, Secretary Nome, we don't just make fun of how you look. We make fun of how you talk, because you've had so much work done that you can't

move your mouth anymore. And we make fun, Secretary Nome, of the fact that you are a sadist who kills animals for pleasure and shoots puppies. And we make fun of the fact that you're a clown. We make fun of the fact that that you wear a variety of action adventure dress up outfits. And pretend to be tough and go to jails in other countries and stand in front of bunches of nude men in cages like a poor an actress. That's what we make fun of, and

particularly those dress up outfits. Corey Lewandowski doll sold separately, runner up worser. Oh, it's ambassador Mike Huckabee. What's interesting about Mike Huckabee is, of course his interest in Israel is that it be destroyed, but destroyed the right way. They want. The fundamentalists, like this lunatic Huckabee and his daughter Huckster Huckabee, and his grandson huck Huckabee, they want to see a rapture and for the rapture to happen in this screwball version of the Bible that they have.

The Bible being somewhat dubious source to begin with, but their screwball version of the Bible, it ends with all of the Jews being forcibly converted to screwball Bible religion, whichever one it is, fundamental, episca, whatever it is. And you know what happens if you don't get converted, if you're Jewish. Yeah, the other way to forcibly convert them and make sure that they're all converted. Is that you don't have any on earth who aren't converted? And how

do you do that? Yeah, well, we know how people have tried this before. That's Huckabee's interest in Israel. That's why he is the ambassador to Israel, to make sure that when Israel is destroyed, it meets with his biblical approval. The Prime Minister of Great Britain here Starmer, Sir here Starmer, of whom I have many doubts, but Sir Kir wrote that the Israeli government's decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong and we urge it to reconsider immediately.

He went on about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and made excellent points. He did not go so far as to pull the plug on Israel, as Germany seems to be about to Hukkabee, and again Hekabee wants to see Israel destroyed and all the Jews in the world forcibly converted one way or the other. Huckabee writes, with his false sincerity, so Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas and feed them, even though Israeli hostages are being starved.

And by the way, remember Mike Khawkabee became famous by selling people weight loss cures that, ultimately, as he proved, don't effing work. Speaking of starving people, did UK surrender to Nazis and drop four to them? Ever heard of Dresden PM starmer? That wasn't food you dropped. If you

had been PM, then UK would be speaking German. If you're not in the United States, I'd like to point out that I don't know how many of us at the moment are infected by this brainworm or the curse or whatever it is that's caused the mass lowering of IQ and morality in this nation. I don't know if it's forty percent or twenty percent. They're just real loud.

But for those of us who do not have this brainworm and or curse, I'd like to once again apologize on behalf of all of us in real America for things like my cuckaby, and we're guilty of not doing enough to stop Mi Kukabe because bluntly, we're just so goddamned happy he's not in the country at the moment. He's one of our greatest shames. The Charlton Mike Huckabee has any role in the United States government, and to use his phrasing there, he of course sought the residency

ran for president in two thousand and eight. Had he gained the presidency, we in America, we would all already be speaking Russian. Those are the first two nominees, but the winner the worst, Pam Blondie, our Attorney general, who makes Mike Huckabee seem like Woodrow Wilson, who sounds like she has failed hundreds of auditions as the co host on late night TV infomercials. Tell me more about these vegetables. Doctor.

Apparently for a long time, we've had a bounty out twenty five million dollars on the scumbag Maduro, the essentially dictator of Venezuela, and calls himself, I guess a socialist. He's a scumbag. Well, she's just doubled this. By the way, I'd just like to point out again she does not know how to read any thing allowed, nor does she have any ability to modulate or control.

an idea, Blondie. Why don't you arrest Putin while he's here? Two days? Worst person in the world. Just after dinner, the phone rang in my office at Channel five in La I am a viewer. I took a deep breath. You never knew where a call that started like that was going to end up. I just wanted you to know.

I was out golfing at Riviera at the Riviera Club this afternoon and Bruce McNall, the owner of the kings Well He just walked through the locker room saying, hey, guys, if you want to buy your seasoned Kings tickets, do it now. It just traded for Wayne Gretzky. The price is going to go up next week. To be polite to the viewer, I asked a few questions, but frankly,

the story was pretty stupid. This was the second week of August nineteen eighty eight, and there was a lot of talk that the Edmonton Oilers were going to trade Wayne Gretzky, the most famous player in hockey, and there was nearly as much talk that that trade would send him to use in La. But the owner of the Kings just telling passers by at random in a golf clubhouse that he had just made the trade. I was suspicious that I was being pranked. Fifteen minutes later, my

phone rang again. Hi, I'm a big fan of yours and I watch every night. Here we go again. I was just having lunch with a friend of mine out here at the golf course in bel Air, and like an hour later, freaking Bruce McNall shows up in the dining room and asks for everybody's attention, and he says he's just completed the deal for Wayne Gretzky, and now

I was beginning to get actually worried. I was a lame duck as the sports director of Channel five in Los Angeles, and for months there had been rumors that I was moving down the street to Channel two in Los Angeles. There had been these rumors, mostly because I was moving down the street to Channel two. The deal had been done months earlier. We were going to announce it that week. In fact, as these two guys called in, I had actually been busily packing up my Channel five office.

My thought now was that the sportscaster at the local NBC station, who had a bit of a substance problem and a nasty temper and a real dislike for the fact that I was nearly as popular as he was, was setting me up. I had once managed to mislead him into thinking we were about to break a story about a big LA football trade. There was no breaking story because there was no trade, and he had actually mentioned it on the air, having clearly stolen it from me because I was the one who had made it up.

And oh was he furious at me for all I knew he wanted to embarrass me. Three weeks before I moved into direct competition with him at five, six and eleven. This August eighth, nineteen eighty eight was in fact my first day back after I had burned all my Channel five vacation time, and for all I knew, this guy at NBC had been having his staffers call me for a week with made up sightings of McNall confirming a Gretzky trade that frankly, I never believed was going to happen.

I mean not to get two sidetracked here, But one day my phone rang and it was a kid who said, Hi, mister Oberman, I'm sorry, but I'm a finalist to be an intern here at Channel four for Fred Rogan, and mister Rogan says I can have the spot, but only if I call you up right now and say I'm sorry. If I call you up and I tell you to go f your self, the kid did not say f To his credit, he used his real name, Bill Weir.

He later became a sportscaster for the third Network station in LA, then a correspondent for ABC and now CNN, and I have not let a year go by since without reminding him of his f yourself internship phone call he said life paid him back by making him work with the guy for several months. Anyway, back to Gretzky night.

Two supposed listeners have called to say that Bruce McNall, the owner of the La Kings, is apparently trapesing through golf locker rooms and dining rooms at country clubs to tell them he has completed a trade for the babe ruth of hockey, Wayne Gretzky. And they're calling me because they like me. I'm suspicious. And now the phone rings again. This guy was playing golf at the La country Club. Same story, McNall, by your Kings tickets, No, I just got Gretzky. The next caller had been a yet a

fourth club, I think Wilshire or something. If this was a prankett was a big one, and bluntly I had begun to admire it. Finally came a fifth call. You don't know me, but I watch you every night. I stumbled onto a story. I think you'll want to run tonight. I said, which golf course were you at? And he said, excuse me. I was in my office all day, and so was my missus. She's on the phone with me.

She works for Bruce McNall the Kings. This time, I grabbed a pencil, Honey, why don't you take it from here? And she did. She worked in the finance office and she had, literally, she said, just made out a check for fifteen million dollars to the owner of the Edmonton Oilers, Peter Pocklington. She said, and the note memo where you write what it's for, I was told to put in Wayne Gretzky. She also had seen the trade contract identified the players the Kings were going to give up with

the fifteen million to get Gretzky. They were Jimmy Carson and Martinez Jell. There were also draft choices, but she didn't know or didn't remember the specifics of which ones. Now, breathless, I asked her if I could call her back through the switchboard of the LA Forum where the Kings and McNall's offices were, just to confirm she was who she said she was. She said, I could, I did she was. I believe. In fact, she turned out to be the only person on the McNall financial team that did not

get charged with something. So now I went in to talk to my news director and to the producer of our newscast we were not on until ten PM. It was now about seven. They were very excited, and they said that given that I had exact details from a King's source, plus the four witnesses to the owner of the team shooting off his big bazoo at every golf course he could reach, that we should run it, and that we should run it as the lead news story right at the start of the newscast that night, which

we did. The Kings would not confirm it, obviously, but as soon as I got off the with my sports cast the second time I reported this story, a reporter from the Associated Press was on the phone asking me to read him my script, which he then quoted word for word and put out on their sports wire. It was on the back page of the New York Post. The next day. My friends called me from New York to say, hey, your sports cast is on the back page of the New York Post along with this big

picture of Wayne Gretzky. The leak caused the Kings to move up the announcement of the deal from their original plan, which was Thursday the eleventh, to the next night, Tuesday the ninth, A King's vice president told me at the press conference that The Oilers were enraged because they had wanted to hold off until the eleventh, because the deadline for their season ticket holders to get their deposits back

were Wednesday the tenth. The Kings were nice enough to let me of all the TV guys interview Gretzky first Live, and I congratulated Wayne on the move, and he actually congratulated me on the scoop, and I said I didn't do anything but answer the phone, and he thought about it for a second and said pretty much the same for me, and we've been friendly ever since. But the laziest scoop of all time did eventually come back with

a sting for me and some payback. A year later, we all submitted our best stories for consideration for the local Emmy for Best TV Sports Reporting for the calendar year nineteen eighty eight. I submitted Surprise, Surprise, the Gretzky scoop.

The Emmys were always judged by a committee of television types from a different city, so he didn't have that home La Bias and the guy from NBC, who I had first thought was pranking me about the Gretzky story, had somehow found out that the Emmys for nineteen eighty eight would be judged in nineteen eighty nine in Ohio.

In Columbus, Ohio, I think so he managed to get an interview with Morgana the Kissing Bandit, who was this scantily clad, buxome woman you may remember, who in the old days of innocence, used to bribe her way on Major League Baseball fields and bounce out onto the plate or the mound, and she'd go and kiss stars like

George Brent and Nolan Ryan during games. Morgana MORGANA. Roberts lived near Columbus, Ohio, so sure enough, at the Emmys the next year, my exclusive report of the trade of Hockey's greatest player, Wayne Gretzky was one of the finalists for the Los Angeles Best TV Sports Reporting Emmy. But in the ceremony, and it was at some old Landmark hotel in Pasadena, they showed clips of all the pieces that were finalists and then announced that the winner was

Fred Rogan KNBC. For being chased by Morgana the Kissing Bandit, my agent stood up and bowed my girlfriend, punched me in the arm and said let's get out of here and go drinking. We left I've done all of the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil. Our musical directors have countdown and my great thanks to them. It was produced by TKO Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass

and drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithical, Our satirical and pithical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Thank you, Nancy, Thank you for never saying pithical. The Olderman theme for ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. That's the sports music. Thank you, ESPN. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed, Thank you,

No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Larry David. Thank you Larry. Everything else was as always my fault. Thank you me. It's countdown for today. Day one two hundred and four America held hostage and only seems like

one two hundred four. It's just two hundred and four, but it is just one, two hundred and fifty nine days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained term, unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and trump'steen or the Actuarial Tables, or while they're arresting Putin in Alaska on Friday, Go Go Go. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,

good afternoon, good night, and good luck. The Nobel Peace Prize Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.